Gun Or No Gun, This Crime Was Serious

In this world, there are many events I don't understand. One of these was covered in ``Attacker Spared Prison Time'' [Town News; Hartford, Dec. 1].

Hartford Superior Court Judge Elliot N. Solomon gave Maurice Jernigan a suspended sentence for ``beating and kicking a woman so hard she was hospitalized for head and chest wounds.'' Why the suspended sentence?

The suspended sentence was meted out because Jernigan wasn't going to use a gun that he had in his possession. But what about the fact that he did indeed injure his victim so badly that she was hospitalized; that he had ``repeatedly kicked her in the chest and head after he had knocked her down''?

This seems to me to be a serious offense regardless of the fact that the gun was not used.